How to Stay Healthy During the Holidays

The holiday season: a time of the year full of family, happiness, and cheer. However, often hand in hand with the best things of the season come tight schedules, long work days, less sleep, and increased stress. This, plus the change in the weather, often welcome in illness. 

There are many different things that we can do to take charge of our health during these wonderful, yet busy times of the year. We are going to focus on four different things that can be initiated today to optimize health during the holiday season and can be applied to the rest of the year.

Decrease Sugar Consumption

The holiday season is marked with company parties, school bake sales and goodies galore. Though sweets tend to be a staple during the Thanksgiving and Christmas season… I mean who doesn’t like a good pumpkin pie…these treats can be impacting your immune system.

Vitamin C is a common staple in the medicine cabinet. It is important for immune function, but also for detoxification, skin and cardiovascular health. To use this important nutrient within our cells, it must gain access through certain receptor sites. The catch is that this receptor site also shares entry with sugar. Whenever multiple things use the same receptor site, they compete with each other for entry. Therefore, when we are sick, if we continue to consume large amounts of sugar, our body is not able to absorb Vitamin C. Though those pies and delicious desserts like to call out our names, our immune system is not able to work at its optimum level when we overindulge in these things. The best thing to do is to limit sugar as much as possible during the times of the year when there is heightened susceptibility to infection.

Optimizing Sleep Environment

During the different phases of sleep, multiple hormones, vitamins and minerals become active. This is the time in which much of our physical healing and memory consolidation takes place. Sleep is important for hormone balance, immune system activation, and appetite suppression. Therefore, if sleep is limited or suboptimal, it could be impacting several different physiologic functions. There are several habits that can be adopted to optimize the environment for sleep:

• Dark, cool (around 68 degrees), quiet room –creates surroundings that are conducible for sleep.
• Limit screen time before bed (TVs, kindles, gaming devices) – these items give off different frequencies that can amp up our nervous system and make it difficult to attain restful sleep.
• Go outside in the sun during the day – optimizes circadian rhythms and prepares body for dark cycle and night.
• Develop a routine – our bodies optimize patterns that are continually repeated. Therefore, train your body to prepare for sleep.
  • Winding down with a warm cup of tea. Chamomile,Kava, Peppermint, Lemon Balm and Green Tea are great options to try.
  • Relaxing with a warm bath. The body temperature naturally cools down in preparation for sleep. Once you step out of the water, your body has to cool itself down to return to normal temperature. Therefore, this aids your body in the natural cooling mechanism.
• Monitoring the quality of you bed and pillows –this is very important. If your body is not able to fully relax throughout the night, spasms and chronic muscle imbalances will often occur.

Taking time to Breathe

Life never seems to slow down. How many times are we actually thinking of one thing at a time?… Hardly ever. We’re always planning for the next thing ahead, plus 20 other things at the same time. Breathing and stillness often go by the wayside once stress and the laundry list of things todo begins to pile up. However, these two things are critical to your overall health, and can play a part in your immune function as well.

Yes, we are always breathing. However, are we breathing correctly? There is a right, and a wrong way to breathe. When you breathe in, your belly should expand first, then your ribs, then your upper chest. The reverse movements should occur during exhalation. If your upper chest moves first, there is a good chance that you are significantly reducing the amount of air you are inhaling, and in turn, the amount of oxygen you are providing for your tissues. When you breathe through your belly, you are using your diaphragm to optimize your lung capacity for air. If breathing is not optimal, then oxygen levels will not be optimal. Oxygen is critical for brain function, metabolism, and cellular repair. Taking slow and controlled deep abdominal breaths can help to lower stress levels, optimize digestion and increase healing through activation of the parasympathetic nervous system.

Immune Support Supplementation

It is important to give your bodies the tools they need to optimize immune function during the holiday season. Adopting a diet that is high in green leafy veggies, berries, nuts and seeds, avocados, and wild caught fish can supply vital phytochemicals and nutrients that are the foundation of cellular function.

There are many different whole food supplements are minerals that can enhance immune function. The following are a sampling of different immune boosting herbs, vitamins and minerals:

• Zinc – building block in immune cells, such as macrophages, lymphocytes, neutrophils and natural killer cells
• Vitamin C– increases phagocytosis (immune system “eating” of bugs), “deactivates” viruses and enhances immune cell function
• Oregano –anti-fungal, antibacterial, antiviral and anti-parasitic
• Echinacea– stimulates immune system and increases production of immune cells
• Elderberry– acts as an anti-viral by disrupting virus’ ability to enter our cells
• Ginger– helps eliminate the toxic load within the organ systems, and cleanses our natural detoxification and drainage network, the lymphatic system

The important thing to remember during this holiday season is that no matter the length of the list of “to-do’s”, the endless party planning, and Christmas shopping, these are not the things that are truly important during this holiday season. Focus on family and making memories that will be made and will carry you into the coming years. These will be the things that you remember five, ten years down the road, not the list of “to-do’s”.